


love with all the fight inside you

by alovelylight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 00:59:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11544126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylight/pseuds/alovelylight
Summary: She never hated him. Not once. But sometimes, when he approached her with that cocky shine in his eyes, asking for a chance to take her out, she could only scoff. He may have actually fancied her, but she knew too well to trust headstrong boys with their pride on the line.Or: Lily Evans' relationship with herself and a certain messy-haired boy throughout their years in Hogwarts.





	love with all the fight inside you

**11** // 1971

This was the year she begun to differentiate magic from the ordinary, her world stretching wider than her sister and her well-meaning parents. Words like _love_ and _romance_ were far from her vocabulary, and she was just getting used to pronouncing _lumos_ and _accio_.

Potter was a mess of a boy. She hated the way he spilled over the edges, how his laugh spurred an earthquake, how grass and mud so often stained his shins. As small and skinny as he was, he seemed fitting for a hurricane, and he had a penchant for knocking down her patience.

 **12** // 1972

Tuney ignored her as if she was a forgotten doll, outdated and ragged. Instead, her big sister resorted to her makeup kit and her suburbia of cookie-cutter boyfriends. She and Sev explored woodlands near their house and charmed frogs and talked about their lives until the stars run their course. With Sev, the universe seemed to quiet down and take a break.

That Potter boy was still ridiculous as ever (funny at times, but humor couldn’t fix meanness). He and his gang never seemed to take a break, especially when it came to hexing and mocking Sev. She hated it; she knew what it was like to be jeered at for being something that you’re not, and she made damn sure Potter knew it.

 **13** // 1973

Words such as _pretty_ were given to her this year. She found out that some boys liked her long red hair, her unforgiving green eyes, and the gentle yet firm structure of her features. She was told there was poetry written for girls like her; girls whose hair contained the sun and whose heart sheltered the moon.

But she preferred words like _bright_ or _helpful_ or _kind_ for description, even in times where she didn’t feel like all those things. Potter seemed scared of her, running into walls and stepping on his friends’ toes whenever he saw her gliding down the hall. Sev snorted and said that he was too much of a coward to be in the same room as her – whatever that meant.

 **14** // 1974

She was learning the tiresome art of forgiving. Sev seemed to laugh and smile with her less, and spent his spare time with Mulciber and Avery in the Slytherin Dungeon. She hated to think of him surrounded by the Dark Arts, eyeing the poisonous dragon that was ready to eat all of them alive. But she knew she couldn’t stop Sev from doing something he set his mind on.

Her friends talked of war. Marlene gnawed at her already broken fingertips. Mary casted her wishes to the sky. Dorcas pored over the Daily Prophet with eyes that howled with worry. They were teenage girls, she thought, they weren’t supposed to worry about their blood or their lives. But she knew, as surely as she knew Sev’s understating smiles, that danger was coming afoot.

 **15** // 1975

 _Mudblood_. That word made an ugly, rundown home in her heart and settled down to cohabit with her hurt and fury. For all his recent shortcomings, the thought that Sev would hurl around and insult her status was too out-of-reach, too cutting. But the truth of it was that he did, and that she had turned her heel, and that they weren’t speaking.

Potter also infuriated her – in that humiliating moment where he dangled Sev in the air, she saw red. She never hated him. Not once. But sometimes, when he approached her with that cocky shine in his eyes, asking for a chance to take her out, she could only scoff. He may have actually fancied her, but she knew too well to trust headstrong boys with their pride on the line.

 **16** // 1976

This was the year she tried to navigate the darkness without Severus beside her (he hasn’t been for quite some time, but this was the clean break), and she found that her legs were stronger than she gave them credit for. But at times – more than she’d like to admit – her pain turned into a question mark and Sev’s low, familiar laughter was the only answer.

She befriended Remus through their prefect duties and enjoyed his gentleness, the way he paused to think about his words. He told her stories of how the Marauders got into trouble: spontaneous trips in flying cars, sneaking Firewhisky into their dorms by third year, hosting little drunken parties in the kitchens long after curfew has settled.

Potter has a new earnestness to him. His jokes softened at the edges, intended to tease instead of to hurt. It was strange; she was used to the boy who boasted about his athletic prowess, who wrote her flirty and horrible poems on Valentine’s. But she liked to see him smiling – not smirking – at her, fully and sweetly, their grins matching as she sat with him, Remus, Sirius, and Peter around a bonfire. Long after curfew has settled.

 **17** // 1977

She was always a victim of extreme feeling. That year, fear and love and rage and joy mixed inside her, ready to churn her insides into war. There was talk of joining the Order and intense practice dueling sessions. There were war pamphlets on the Hogwarts walls. There were Muggleborns tortured and destroyed, their deaths on the front page of the Daily Prophet. There were ashes and terror, drifting along the streets of the magical world she loved so well.

Potter – no, James – also seemed battered by this battle. He came from a gilded world, wealthy parents and obedient house-elves and all, but he was no stranger to struggles. Two of his best friends (as she was to find out) were a werewolf and the disowned son of a formidable Pureblood house. And (as she was also to find out) he was falling in love with a Muggleborn girl whose hair contained the sun and whose heart sheltered the moon.

That year, she loved with all the fight inside her. She stayed up with Marlene when she suffered from nightmares, she did Mary’s essays when the girl was too exhausted to function. She kept Remus’ secret safe and sound. She helped Peter with Potions. She and Sirius even shared a Firewhisky and smoked into the sticky night air. The sting Severus left was still there, but she knew how to cope.

She clung James close to her, loving him in all his wild adventure and his red-gold pride and his shameless shows of adoration (the awful poetry was making a comeback). Their early kisses were much like their relationship – awkward and messy at first, but eventually gave way to passion, and intimacy, and hope. These things made her look forward to the future. Maybe they’ll be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Please give feedback/comments. And praise.


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